World risks new 'Cold War' after nerve agent attack, Russian ambassador says

Russia's ambassador to Australia said on Wednesday the world will enter into a "Cold War situation" should the West continue its bias against Moscow in response to the nerve agent attack against a former Soviet spy in Britain.

"The West must understand that the anti-Russian campaign has no future," Russian Ambassador Grigory Logvinov told reporters in Canberra."If it continues, we will be deeply in a Cold War situation."

Russia denies any part in the March 4 nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury, England.

Canada, the U.S. and governments across Europe are expelling Russian diplomats en masse in response.

Australia said on Tuesday it would expel two Russian diplomats, prompting Logvinov's impromptu address to the media on Wednesday morning.

Logvinov rejected accusations that Moscow was behind the attack and said Russia has yet to decide on its response to the diplomatic action by British allies.

Britain has "stubbornly" refused to provide evidence, he said, and has not followed "provisions and protocol of the Convention on Prohibition of Chemical Weapons."

Logvinov's comments were similar to those made by another Russian diplomat at a UN conference last week. Denis Davydov said Britain was not living up to its obligations by failing to share evidence with Moscow on the case. 

British Ambassador Matthew Rowland disagreed that Russia had a right to see the evidence, accusing Russia of trying to confuse the picture with misleading procedural arguments.

'We're not concealing anything'

Meanwhile, Russia's ambassador to Indonesia, Lyudmila Georgievna Vorobieva, said Wednesday the situation surrounding the Skripal case and the expulsions of Russian diplomats was "absolutely absurd." 

Speaking to reporters in the capital, Jakarta, she warned that the confrontation could lead not to a Cold War but to an "ice war."

"Do we want that? Well, I can tell you from Russia's side definitely we don't want that, because if we take into account the number of nuclear weapons accumulated by the country — this kind of development would be fatal for our planet."

Russia wanted to co-operate in the investigation of the attack on the Skripals "in a very transparent way," she said, but added that Russian consular access to the two in hospital in Britain had been denied.

"We're not concealing anything," Vorobieva said.

Indonesia has not expelled any Russian diplomats, and Vorobieva said Russia appreciated its "balanced positions" and the fact it was not "jumping to any conclusions."